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A magical device for me: HP’s slate

When I saw the videos with HP’s upcoming slate device, and I learned that it will support Flash Player and Adobe AIR I knew this is the magical device for me and my family. The only question I have is how much it will cost.

My wife is a heavy Internet user (movies, social networks, casual games). Since we became parents she is using all these social networks even more than before:

– “Look Mihai, our friends posted a new video with their baby! Look at this video with your son playing with a bear! Isn’t he amazing?”

Well you have the picture :D. Now, most of these sites rely heavily on Flash Player. At the same time it seems the table in front of my wife is becoming smaller and smaller due to all sort of UFOs (do not mistake with alien ships, to dads these are the Unknown Funky Objects used by moms). Thus the form factor and size of this device I think it will be just perfect. Probably I could use it on vacations to save photos and videos as well.

Now, I just have to wait until it gets launched! I wonder if it will be out in time for our anniversary :)

I need Slate too, but not for my wife but me :)
When my son and wife occupy desktop PC all I can do is to cheer from behind or visit my neighbor for coffee :)
At least now I know what I am going to ask for birthday!

“I think it’s much better suited for today’s web…” This is correct. But what about tomorrow. People don’t care about Flash; they care about the apps they love to use which are for now mostly developed in Flash. Should alternatives such as the iPhone/iPad apps replace those online Flash apps, then Flash on the tablet devices won’t matter.

What we need to watch out for as Flex/Flash developers is that the iPhone is habit forming. Hence, it is capable of redefining the online space.

By convincing YouTube to develop iPhone friendly apps, Apple covered the vast majority of the web surfing public. The next few months will be interesting!

Is anything seen as an alternative for Flash on iPad/phone platform in foreseeable future?
Everybody talking about impact of Apple’s anti-Flash policy, but no one is offering an alternative technology. And that is what Flash/Flex should be afraid of. But, I heard that you are fearless breed :)

As tablet PCs go, this one actually seems to recognize the fundamental difference between a laptop and a tablet — the interface itself seems to be geared toward touching, rather than clicking. That said, I don’t think the video really makes a strong case against the iPad (which, let’s face it, it was designed to do): The apps shown — Photoshop.com, Pandora, a photo manager (which actually doesn’t seem as polished as iPhoto)– already exist and perform quite well on the iPhone/iPad platform.

So yes, although it’s nice to see Flash on a handheld device… this is really just a PC, and price will be much more important than any other factor in determining whether the consumer adds it to their stable of capable computers.

I think one of the most appealing feature is the ability to install any application you want (this device runs Windows 7 and I don’t think it will be locked).

Though some argue that the vast majority of the people out there are not geeks like us (and thus able to discern or want to install all sort of things) and can live with a device that limits your choices. I on the other hand believe that web is part of the future, and at least for now many interesting apps are delivered using browsers plug-ins.

I think there is another point of view when thinking about these devices and the way will be used. Many people will want to use the same software they are using on their desktops or laptops, or they will want to use the same web apps. I, for example, when I want to use Twitter, I’ll always use TweetDeck. I don’t see any reason for not having TweetDeck on a device like HP’s slate…

Let’s be cool. Your last comment is just a diversion (you are moving the discussion from HP’s device and the fact that it seems to be open, to a discussion about HTML5 killing Flash). To my knowledge, NO ONE came back from the future in order to know what will happen in the next half, 1, 2, or X years. We can speculate all day long about this if you want, but not here :). Maybe I can comment on these matters on your blog, and I promise I’ll not hide my name and affiliation.

So, while no one KNOWS what the future will be, I know that HP’s slate device is supporting plug-ins. And it seems with this device any user can see everything he usually sees on a desktop when browsing the Internet.

@all

I apologize if this comment seems to be out of place. I don’t want to see flames on my blog. I never had to delete comments so far, and I’d hate to start doing this now…